NDEs testimonies are infinitely precious. Because they tell us that we are loved unconditionally. With everything we are and everything we’ve done. Even the parts of us or the deeds we’re ashamed of and don’t dare show, for fear of no longer being loved. Those parts of us that we prefer to keep in the shadows.
100% pure love
During one of my most intense spiritual experiences, I felt this absolute, unconditional love filling me and surrounding me. This Presence wasn’t asking me to change anything about myself. It loved me without judging me. It is nothing but love, nothing but a “chemically pure” love, a “100% love”, if I dare say so. It’s hard to imagine for us, who are constantly in judgment, but that’s what I experienced, like so many others.
I’m a long way from total self-acceptance. But the road I’ve travelled already gives me so much peace and joy that it motivates me to keep going. Above all, I now know that when I have judgmental thoughts about myself, and even more so if I condemn myself, the problem is in those thoughts, not in who I am. For me, who for so long considered that my thoughts of guilt were necessarily a sign that I’d done something wrong, this is quite a revolution!
Rejection of our own shadow leads to rejection of others
If we reject even a tiny part of ourselves, there will always be people we reject because they embody what we don’t want to see in ourselves. I’m well aware, for example, that if I find it so hard to put up with people I find selfish, it’s because I still hate everything selfish about myself.
Kenneth Ring puts it very well: “The NDErs teach us to return to love. They tell us that all we need is to return to the arms of that love. And that it’s this love that can change our lives, our lives and change the world. And one of the main things love frees us from is the prison of judgments we make about ourselves and others. [1]
We need this inner healing so badly
It’s a deep inner healing that we desperately need. We’re so convinced that we won’t be loved if we show others our shameful parts… We can draw on NDE stories and the best of spiritual traditions to know that we are, in fact, beings of light and love. Fear, unconsciousness and suffering are the three sources that make us act without love. But they don’t change our nature. They don’t affect who we are deep down, which we’ll fully realize once we leave this world.
Thomas Merton explained: “To say that I am made in God’s image is to say that love is the reason for my existence, because God is love. Love is my true identity. Altruism is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.
A better life
Marshall Rosenberg, the American psychologist and creator of Non-Violent Communication®, expresses the same idea: “the need to beautify life [la nôtre et celle des autres] is one of the most fundamental and strongest we all have. Another way of putting it would be to say that we need to act from the divine energy within us. And I believe that when we “are” this divine energy, there is nothing we love more – nothing that can bring us more joy – than to make life more beautiful, to use our immense power in the service of life”. [2]
I invite you to draw on testimonies of NDEs and Spiritually Transforming Experiences to dare to love yourself unconditionally. For they are often so powerful that they can help us break down our inner walls. Walls based on fear and self-judgment.
Sexuality too
I’d like to address a point that may be important – even essential – for those who are not at peace with their homosexuality or who condemn the homosexuality of others: all the homosexual Emists said that it wasn’t even a topic during their life review. It’s not that they were told: “You shouldn’t have done that, but too bad, I forgive you”. No, it simply wasn’t mentioned. I repeat: it wasn’t a subject! Unless the Emissary himself or herself brought it up.
Here’s an emblematic testimony on this point. It comes from a homosexual woman who grew up in the American South. She was steeped in a rigorist Christian religion, which considers homosexuals to be hated by God and to go to hell for their homosexuality. Here’s an account of her story: “In the distance, she saw the light that attracted her. When she reached it, she marveled that it was God. She lived her life review, which included her love life with women. She wondered how she could be with God, for she had always been taught that God threw homosexuals into hell, since they were an abomination. So she asked: I’m a homosexual, will you still love me?
In response, she was caught in a divine embrace full of love and felt an explosion of happiness and joy. Then God said with a laugh and a Southern accent [des USA]: “You are my child. You are my child. I love you. I love you. I love you.” And he added: “Go get ’em!”, as if he were a coach sending a player back onto the field.”[3]
Total acceptance
This testimony touches me all the more because it extends, in reality, to all those parts of our lives of which we are ashamed, far beyond the question of homosexuality alone. It also echoes all the scenes recounted in the Gospels in which Jesus welcomes with total acceptance people whom the morality of his time forcefully rejected.
One of the best-known is that of the adulteress: Jewish law condemned her to death by stoning[4] There was no way out, no extenuating circumstances, the punishment was inevitable. And yet, Jesus had this extraordinary phrase: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. The Gospel tells us that all the accusers left one by one, starting with the oldest … Jesus then shows the extent of God’s love by saying to this woman: “Has no one condemned you? I don’t condemn you either”. [5]
In the same way, Jesus welcomed and loved Mary Magdalene, even though her status as a prostitute condemned her to absolute contempt and rejection by those who met her.[6]
In the same vein, Jesus healed the homosexual companion of a Roman centurion. For those of you with catechism memories, it was the officer who said: “I’m not worthy for you to enter my house, but just say the word and my servant will be healed”. [7]
Each of us is loved unconditionally
And Jesus did not limit himself to questions of morality and sexuality. He welcomed just as unconditionally a man named Zacchaeus[8], who was a tax collector for the Romans, a collaborator with the occupying power and hated by his fellow countrymen. What’s more, he was a thief, extorting sums far in excess of those normally due. He therefore had every reason to be violently hated and rejected by his fellow citizens, who did not hesitate to express their hatred.
However, while in the town of Jericho, Jesus called out to Zacchaeus and told him he wanted to come and stay with him. This caused a great scandal among the self-righteous. They were shocked that someone who presented himself as a prophet would mix with one of society’s worst dregs, let alone do him the honor of coming to stay with him. But Luke tells us that this acceptance, this love shown by Jesus, totally transformed Zacchaeus. So much so that he decided to pay back double all the money he had stolen. In other words, he gave up his entire fortune…
In all these encounters, Jesus demonstrated to the utmost what the Emists also tell us: God’s love is unconditional. Totally, entirely, absolutely, radically, etc., etc. There are no exceptions: there is no person, no behavior that is excluded from this unconditional love.
Amsterdam’s magnificent declaration
Knowing how difficult it can be for us to imagine – let alone accept – this reality of unconditional love, the Emists who drafted the Amsterdam Declaration wished to strongly emphasize this point: “Love is the essence of the universe, and unconditional love is the essence of universal Light. Universal Light is pure Peace, pure Perfection and pure Love. No one can imagine the infinite love of universal Light. And to be clear and to insist: unconditional really means unconditional. It means there are absolutely no conditions attached.
Love is an infinitely powerful force that surrounds us and loves us. This source is also within us. It enables us to love ourselves and others. It’s what makes us happy. That’s why it’s so important, so urgent, so vital, to love ourselves. Unconditionally.
To go further, see also the article There is no judgment after death or this one: You don’t need an NDE to live in love
[1] Lessons from the Light – see Kenneth Ring’s website
[2] In his book Les bases spirituelles de la Communication NonViolente (The Spiritual Basis of Nonviolent Communication ) – see the website of the Association pour la Communication Nonviolente (Association for Nonviolent Communication)
[3] Impressions of NDE by Robert Coppes
[4] Her lover too, by the way, but curiously, those who accused the woman left her alone…
[5] Gospel according to John, chapter 8
[6] Gospel according to Luke, chapter 7
[7] Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 8
[8] Gospel according to Luke, chapter 19
